The majority of U.S. employees feel compelled or obligated to check their office email accounts during their off-hours, according to a new survey conducted for GFI Software by Opinion Matters. While this may sound par for the course within tech department circles, CIOs who support work-life balance may want to know that a significant number of professionals check their accounts "in real time" (meaning constantly) when not on duty. In addition, thanks to mobility and BYOD, a mindset has taken hold in which corporate email accounts are viewed as one's personal property. In fact, most employees have no problem with using these accounts for both work and personal purposes, findings reveal. "Email is not just a critical business communications tool, it is relied on—perhaps too much—as a virtual filing cabinet and storage repository," says Sergio Galindo, general manager of the infrastructure business unit at GFI Software. "This kind of approach can all too easily breed an 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind' attitude towards email safety, security and backup. [This] is dangerous ground for any company given the value of the data tied up in an organization's mailboxes and the disruption that is caused when just one user suffers email disruption, let alone the whole company." As part of the findings, some professionals have confessed to checking email during a number of social occasions when such activity is considered inappropriate, and we've included those here. An estimated 500 U.S. workers participated in the research. For more about the survey, click here.